New York - Americans spent briskly in October before superstorm Sandy hit the Northeast on the tail-end of the month. But the question is whether they're still willing to buy an iPhone for Christmas if they plunked down hundreds on a generator for Sandy?

Twenty-one retailers from club operator Costco to department store Macy's reported that sales in October through last Saturday were up 5% compared with the year-ago period, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. That beat the trade group's estimated growth of 3.5% to 4.5%. Results were not hurt by the storm because it hit the East Coast on Monday, two days after the period for which retailers were reporting sales. | Nov. 1, 2012»Read Full Article

With its new two-year budget in place, Wisconsin now has passed up more than $550 million in federal money available under the Affordable Care Act.

The state previously rejected roughly $200 million in federal money available starting in January 2014, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The new budget turned away another $360 million — far more than the $250 million in cuts the same budget made to the University of Wisconsin System. | Aug. 1, 2015»Read Full Article

For decades, Brookfield's Blue Mound Road has been the Milwaukee area's busiest retail corridor, extending westward from its anchor at Brookfield Square mall to Barker Road.

Now, that landscape is changing, with five major retail projects under construction — including Brookfield Square's latest redevelopment phase, and the Von Maur department store-anchored retail center known as The Corners. | Aug. 1, 2015»Read Full Article

With falling oil prices rippling through the global economy — resulting in layoffs, reduced investment and diminished profits for some of the world's biggest energy companies — Americans have been taking advantage of the resulting low prices at the gasoline pump like never before.

Through the first five months of the year, Americans have driven more miles than they ever have during that period, an indication that at least some of the savings they are seeing from lower fuel prices are being used to buy even more fuel. | Aug. 1, 2015»Read Full Article

The Copa, it turns out, is not the hottest spot north of Havana. That distinction belongs to the blast furnace that doubles as the ground transportation staging area at Miami International Airport, where thousands of Cuban visitors could soon be reunited with families separated by 54 years of political and economic estrangement.

For now, President Barack Obama's decision to re-establish diplomatic ties with the Island that Time Forgot has largely humanitarian implications. Most of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States on Cuba in 1962 — and toughened by the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 — will remain in place at an annual cost of about $1.2 billion to the U.S. and nearly $700 million to Cuba. | Aug. 1, 2015»Read Full Article